Here’s another Flemish artist to add to the three I pointed out last month who appear in the painting known as the St Vincent Panels, produced by the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves.

Jan van Eyck appears in the section referred to as the Relic Panel. Gonçalves has intentionally ‘mirrored’ the ‘Joseph’ profile which formed part of an altarpiece painted by Rogier van der Weyden that depicted the Virgin and Child with saints.

Three sections of Rogier’s altarpiece are known to survive: the portraits of Joseph (Jan Van Eyck) and a female saint (St Catherine?) are housed at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, while a third piece, The Magdalen Reading, is kept at the National Gallery, London. The Magdalen figure is a portrait of Jan van Eyck’s daughter Livina.

Below are two examples of Van Eyck’s profile painted by Van der Weyden. Left, the profile which Gonçalves has mirrored and, right, a similar profile from Van der Weyden’s Saint Columba Altarpiece (Alte Pinakothek).

• More on this and the Flemish connection to the St Vincent Panels in a future post.